


Angus MacGyver's Back Op (without Jack)

by storywriter8



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Beating, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fade to Black, Getting Together, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Jack Feels, Kidnapped Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Kidnapping, Limitless Episode AU, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, No Sex, One Shot, Physical Abuse, Pining, Protective Jack, Self-Esteem Issues, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, protective matty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28807413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storywriter8/pseuds/storywriter8
Summary: What was supposed to be the perfect day playing hooky with Jack turns into a living nightmare as Mac is dragged all across the country by three rogue CIA agents. Hurt, terrified and quickly running out of time, all Mac can do is hope that the man he loves will save him one last time.
Relationships: Jack Dalton/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	Angus MacGyver's Back Op (without Jack)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the Limitless episode "Brian Finch's Black Op"
> 
> I need to not post shit so late at night, my brain cant think of good summaries.

“I can't believe I just called in sick for you,” Bozer grumbled as he set down the landline and picked up his lab coat.

Mac grinned and unceremoniously dumped their breakfast dishes into the sink. “Just look outside! It's a perfect spring day! Way too good to spend in a lab or being sent to Siberia.”

Rolling his eyes at his adopted brother, Bozer picked up the keys to Mac’s jeep and headed for the front door. “Well I have three prosthetics to finish by noon so no tiptoeing through the tulips for me. I’ll tell Jack you're Ferus Buler-ing. I wonder if he's going to fake the bubonic plague again.”

Mac giggled in a, ever so slightly love sick manner, at the mention of his partner’s antics ”I helped him research different improbably sicknesses to keep Matty on her toes.”

Shaking his head, Bozer headed for the front door. “You know if you didn’t spend all your time making up ridiculously complicated code phrases and get away schemes you might actually have time to tell Jack that you like him.”

“I'm going to do it this time you know!” Mac yelled after his friend, getting only a loud snort as a response before he heard the front door shut, followed soon after by the sound of his jeep starting and pulling out of the driveway. 

He really was going to tell Jack this time, he had it all planned out. A nice horse ride to a picnic in the hills, where Angus MacGyver would shout out to the world that he was head over heels in love with his partner, Jack Dalton.

Giving a happy little whistle, Mac skipped out to the deck to retrieve his picnic basket. Turning back toward the kitchen, fear shot through Mac as he saw a man step forward into the sunlight, dressed in all back combat gear and head covered in short prickly hair. Turning to run, Mac caught just a glimpse of two other men before the tell tail sting of a taser sent his world into darkness. 

-

Matty Webber frowned as her ‘old friend’ from the CIA continued to ramble on and on from where he had made himself comfortable in her war room. Visitors from other agencies always made her nervous, especially unexpected visitors.

Jack, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed, looked just as worried as Matty with a healthy dose of anger as a cherry on top. He had far fewer pleasant memories from his time in the CIA than she did, with an entirely healthy dose of paranoia as an added souvenir.

“Your little think tank has stayed well under the radar but Mr. MacGyver’s amazing work has really started to turn heads. In fact we have a little mission that could really use his special skills.”

And there it was.

Jack snorted softly but managed not to speak or walk over to break the CIA agent’s head against the coffee table and waited for Matty to tear the man apart.

Resisting her own urge to snarl at slimy Mr. Merrik, Matty put on her diplomatic voice. “Had you led with that request I would have been able to save us both a lot of time. No.”

Merrik’s face fell slightly as he continued to talk, digging himself into the short woman’s bad graces. “I can assure you, my people are very good at what they do and that this request has been vetted from on high.”

“I do not lend out my agents, especially not to another team. No matter what the higher ups say,” Matty snapped as she stood and, giving a slight nod to Jack to show the agent the door.

“He will be keep out of harm's way and returned in no more than two weeks,” Merrick continued, eyes darting between Matty and the dark eyed Jack now stalking towards him

Matty froze at his words and whipped back around. 

“This isn't a request,” Jack said in growing horror, taking a step back from the man

“We sincerely appreciate your cooperation,” the CIA agent said, standing and holding out his hand with an apologetic smile.

Jack took off, running to find Mac.

Matty summoned up all her rage and directed it at Merrik. “Where the hell is MacGyver!”

-

It had been a long two weeks since Karl, Tanner and Az had tased Mac in his home and dragged him halfway across the country on a man hunt. Said man, codenamed Doubtfire, was some kind of relocation expert who had relocated himself no less than four times before they had managed to get anywhere close to him.

Mac had actually caught Doubtfire just a few days ago but the man had begged to be let go, insisting that the CIA agents were trying to kill and frame him for their own crimes. It might have been the two day old bullet graze on his arm or the constant ribbing he had received from the agents or the near constant threat of Tanner making good on his lewd comments but Mac believed him and let the man go. 

He regretted it as two of his ribs cracked under the boots of Tanner and Az.

Another week, and a bullet to the thigh, and they were closing in on Doubtfire again.

Mac resisted the urge to clutch at his battered body, to let fat tears spill over his eyelashes and down his cheeks, to fall apart under the pain and fear consuming him and picked up a spool of fishing line. The agents had been very careful not to let Mac anywhere near their communication gear; and after a failed escape attempt, they had refused to let him near civilization. He had finally managed to get it through their thick heads that he couldn't make things out of nothing and earned a chaperoned trip to a small hardware store a few miles away from the old warehouse they were currently working out of.

The mission was finally coming to an end which meant that this was the last chance Mac had to get a message to the Phoenix. He dreaded to think that would happen to him as soon as the need for his big brain was over. 

Fingering the fishing line, Mac side eyed a woman in a cashmere coat and pearls, an odd choice for a dusty hardware store in the middle of a thunderstorm but who was he to judge. He had already seen the flash of her smart phone screen, exactly what he needed, and was counting down the seconds he had to make his move. 

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Az was still trying to shake a mars bar from a vending machine, Mac walked towards the woman bumping into her and flashing her his best pretty boy smile. The smile worked better than it should have, giving Mac new ideas of what she was doing in the store and a pickpocketed smartphone. Slipping down the tape aisle, Mac paused next to a nearly empty shelf and checked to make sure none of the agents could see him.

Finally, Mac dialed the number he had longed to call every minute of every day since he had been taken. 

Jack’s number. 

He held his breath as the phone dialed, a dozen different possibilities of a dozen different worst case scenarios whirling around his head. The dialing dots vanished and were replaced with a timer as Jack answered. The faint sound of his partner's gruff hello nearly brought Mac to tears, but he didn't dare put the phone to his ear. Turning the call volume off, Mac hit the speakerphone button and slipped the phone to the very back of the shelf.

“What are you doing?” Az’s growled right behind MacGyver, causing him to jump.

Glaring over his shoulder Mac silently set the phone down and grabbed a roll of duct tape near the back of the shelf. Pulling the tape out, Mac waved it pointedly. “Getting tape, can't very well make a trap without duct tape.”

With his arm in the vice like grip of Az, Mac sent out one last little wish for the man he loved to save him one last time.

-

It had been a long two weeks since the love of Jack’s life had been ripped away from him by his old co-workers. Every fear the older man had held tightly in his chest since he nearly left the blond behind in the sand box, to face the guns and bombs of war alone, were confirmed. The second he took in the horrid sight, front door kicked in and laying pitifully on the floor, picnic basket crushed under heavy combat boots, He knew. He knew his best friend in the entire world was gone. Gone where he could not reach, where he could not find him.

Jack had turned right around and ran back to the Phoenix, his plans of extracting information from Merrik growing more painful by the minute. Only to find Matty, a raging storm already on the warpath. The CIA had been less than helpful, insisting that MacGyver would be fine. Their instances became less and less assured as the days slowly passed before finally admitting that their agents had gone rogue two days prior.

Matty had been stuck between screaming at them for not controlling their agents and asking exactly why it had taken them two days to tell her that. She settled for telling the CIA that if they didn't hand over all information surrounding the black op, the agents and the name of the higher up that had signed Mac’s life away, then she would burn their world down around them.

What they had found was not reassuring. 

Mac had been shot at least once before the agents had dropped off the map and taken him with. It had also taken Riley only half an hour to discover a boat load of evidence that the man the agents were hunting down was completely innocent. 

But the worst of all was that the agents were actually good at their jobs, not even Riley could figure out where they had disappeared to after going dark. Bozer and Cage were checking old safe houses the agents had used before, but it was a long shot. All they could really do was sit and wait for Mac to send up a signal.

And Jack didn't do “sitting and waiting”, especially when it came to Mac. It was the whole reason he had turned right back around and headed back into hell with the blond after his 64 days in the sandbox were up. He hadn't been able to handle even the idea of sitting back and waiting to see if Mac made it home alive to try and look his new friend up again. 

Friendship had slowly turned to something sweeter over their time together and it wasn't long before Jack had had to have stern talking to with himself about his feelings. He was in love, and denying it wasn't going to do him any good. But acting on that love was also out of the question. 

Mac was young, Mac was sweet but sassy and smart and completely perfect in every way. He deserved better than a battered old man nearly drowning in the blood of the people he had killed. 

But Jack had been happy with what he had, the ability to work alongside Mac, to keep him safe and be his friend. When Mac had been taken it felt like someone had ripped Jack's heart out to take with.

The Rough Boy ringtone that Mac had insisted that Jack use broke the silence of the war room. Jack nearly jumped out of his skin, misery put aside as he snatched the phone irritably and glared at the unknown number with its WA state area code.

“Hello?” he growled as he picked up, his annoyance at the interruption at war with the inescapable flush of hope that rose up in his heart. No one answered but there was a bit of static and then the ambient noise of the speakerphone being turned on. Jack thought he heard a shaky breath before more static of the speaker being shifted against the skin of someone's hand. Heart in his throat and not daring to speak until he was sure, Jack listened hard and jumped out of his seat as a voice growled in his ear.

“What are you doing?”

Jack didn't recognize the voice but he heard the telltale tap of the phone being set down and a moment later heard a voice he would know anywhere.

“Getting tape, can't very well make a trap without duct tape,” Mac said, his voice sending tears down Jack's face as he waved wildly to Riley and Matty.

They had got Mac’s signal, loud and clear, it was finally time for action.

-

Mac took a shaky breath through his nose and slid the palm of his hand down his aching thigh, keeping his eyes glued to the small CCTV he had set up as far away from the agents as they would allow.

“Don't know why you are watching that,” Karl muttered as he finished cleaning his semi auto and reloaded it. “Wasn't the point of making a tripwire to let us know when Doubtfire arrives?”

“The sooner he gets here the sooner I can leave,” Mac muttered, not looking away from the screen.

Tanner grinned and set his gun aside to stick his thumbs into his belt. “Maybe I should give you something better to do while we wait.”

Repressing a shudder, Mac continued to stare at the screen. Exhausted, but too scared to sleep with the mission nearly over and his usefulness was coming to an end. If Jack had not gotten his message, if the Phoenix had not been able to track him…

A stronger wave course through him, a shudder he couldn't ignore. Quickly, Mac pushed the thoughts of what would happen next aside.

Blinking hard and ignoring the rape treat from Tanner and the laughs of Az and Karl, Mac refocused his tired eyes on the screen. Then he blinked again just to make sure he wasn't imagining what he saw. 

The tv showed the feed from the large cluttered warehouse floor, below where the agents had set up camp. Mac had carefully set up a wire alarm across the floor that would set off a small egg timer, to let them know when someone had crossed it. Beyond the wire he had positioned several crates to fall and cage whoever tried to get to the stairs that lead to the second floor.

And now, walking toward the wire was a man with a gun. He walked cautiously but with purpose across the warehouse floor and the familiar set up his shoulders set Mac’s heart pounding. He was up and running for the stairs just as the egg timer sounded, shoulder checking Az out of his way as the agent leaped up to stop him.

-

Jack winced as he looked down at the taught length of fishing wire he had just stepped on. “I really hope you didn't attach that to a bomb, Mac,” he muttered to the dark warehouse, not really expecting a response, and nearly having a heart attack when the stairwell door crashed open. 

Blond hair glinting in a shaft of moonlight, Mac did not slow as he stumbled out onto the first floor of the warehouse and hurled himself toward Jack. He saw his friend shift his gun to one hand and hold his arms open wide. He saw that goofy grin the Texan always wore when they made it back from the impossible. He saw no more as he crashed into his friend's arms, burying his face into Jack’s chest and digging his fingers into the back of his tac vest.

“I got you, I’m here, it's all gonna be ok now,” Jack murmured, his free hand rubbing soothingly at Mac’s back as he slowly swayed them back and forth. “So long as I ain't standin’ on another bomb.”

Mac gave a wet, choked kind of laugh and shook his head, “Burglar alarm.”

The stairwell door crashed open again and Jack raised his gun to point at the three slightly out of breath, rogue CIA agents. 

“That's our asset,” one of them spat, raising his semi auto to his shoulder.

Giving the man an unimpressed snort, Jack tilted his head as if in contemplation. “Which one should I shoot first?” he asked as casually as if he were wondering what pizza topping to order.

Turning his head, Mac forced himself to look at his captors. Raising a shaking hand he pointed at Tanner. “That one.”

A new kind of pain and corresponding hatred rose up in Jack at the seriousness in Mac’s voice, his request for Jack to kill someone, in response to the Texan’s dumb and obvious joke.

“Whoa now, wait a minute!” Karl said, raising his hands and putting himself not quite in between the cold fury of Jack and the bitter fuming of Tanner. While his teammates were blissfully unaware of the man that now stood pointing a gun at them, Karl knew damn well who Jack Dalton was and exactly the kind of hell he would rain down on them. “We have the trap and the target is in route, we don't need the asset anymore so why don't you take what's yours, we’ll take what's ours and go our separate ways.”

Jack seemed unimpressed but after a moment he took a step back, the fishing wire springing back up. Angling Mac away from the agent, Jack slowly backed them out of the wear house with his gun trained on the three men. As the exterior door swung shut, Jack finally lowered then holstered his gun. 

“Three hospitals with semi autos on the North side, all agents move in,” he murmured into his ear piece and bent slightly to lift Mac's arm over his shoulders to take some weight off the leg he was limping on.

Mac let out a breath and relaxed slightly. “Was wondering if you would actually let them go,” he whispered, resting his forehead against the side of Jack's face for a moment before taking another staggering step.

Jack snorted and shifted the arm around Mac’s waist to lift him up more as they kept walking through a sea of Phoenix agents starting to surround the warehouse. “Matty and I have a lot planned for those three.”

“And Doubtfire?”

“Picked him up two hours ago,” Jack said and nodded his head to an agent standing next to a black SUV to open the door, “Once we confirm his innocent story he’ll be put in witsec.”

Carefully the agent and Jack loaded Mac into the SUV, Jack being pulled in after the blond by his partner’s hand clamped around his arm. The ride to Exfil was short and soon they were pulling up to the small private plane. Too stubborn to be carried, Mac looped his arm back around Jack's shoulder and limped up the steps of the Phoenix jet. Vaguely he saw Jack give a nod to the pilot and the figures in the plane blurred into motion.

The adrenalin that Mac had been running on for days was running out and the pain of his body was finally hitting him. His arm and leg pulsed angrily while his cracked ribs sent out flashes of pain with every breath and in perfect time with the migraine he could feel starting to build from the lack of sleep, food and water. Tears started spilling unheeded down his face as Jack eased him down into a seat.

"Don't," Mac gasped, hands coming up to clutch at Jack as the Texan tried to straighten. 

"Hey, hey, it's ok. I ain't goin nowhere," Jack murmured, keeping his touch as gentle as possible as he sat down next to his friend and handed him a bottle of water. He fought to keep his own shit together as Mac started to fall apart and struggled weakly to get back into Jack's arms.

Fortunately the flight crew had already been given the Matty Webber death glare and threatening orders combo supreme and had the plane up in the air and on its way back to California in record time.

Jack braced himself as the faint ding of the fasten seatbelt light was turned off. Very carefully he eased himself out of Mac's white knuckled grip. "I ain’t leavin’ you, but unless you want medical rollin’ up the tarmac when we land, you gotta let me take a look."

Mac fought to control his panicked breath and slowly let Jack go, moving his shaking fingers to taps at the places he had been injured. 

Giving his friend a soft smile, Jack slipped free and grabbed his duffle bag. There hadn't been time to retrieve the tattered MIT sweatshirt and yoga leggings that Mac always insisted were his comfort clothing; but all things considered, Jack didn't think he would complain about changing into the softest of the Texan's flannel shirts and sweatpants. Even if seeing the blond in his clothes was likely to give Jack either a heart attack or an incredibly inappropriate boner.

Mac's shirt came off first and had Jack gritting his teeth in anger. Giving himself to the count of three to get it the fuck together, Jack pulled the first aid kit out of his bag and set about rebandaging Mac's arm and carefully taping his cracked ribs.

"I heard you got shot but," Jack murmured, carefully smoothing the last strip of tape and maneuvering Mac's arms into the sleeves of the flannel shirt. The Texan fiercely shoved down the thrill of delight when Mac buried his nose in the fabric and inhaled deeply. Carefully, Jack set about buttoning the shirt and then let his hands fall down to the button of Mac's tattered jeans. He jerked them back a second later as Mac flinched away from him. 

"What's wrong? Where are you hurt?" Jack asked before a horrifying thought bubbled up in his brain. "Mac? Did they?"

Mac shook his head, fighting a fresh wave of tears with the sleeves of Jack's shirt that draped down to the tips of his fingers. "No, you found me in time."

He let out a half sob, half laugh, and winced as he jostled his ribs. "They didn't care, Jack! They didn't care if I got hurt, didn't care about doing the right thing. And when I let Doubtfire go, I was so scared that they wouldn't stop. So scared that if I fell asleep that they - that he-"

Mac fell silent, burying his face in his hands and sobbing.

The rage Jack had felt in the warehouse was nothing compared to how he felt now. Each of those agents would be begging for death by the time Jack Dalton was through with them.

"Matty," He growled over coms.

"Take him home, Jack, debrief can wait," Matty said soothingly, like velvet over steel.

Jack pulled himself together one more time and leaned forward to press a kiss to the top of Mac's head and wrap his arms around the blond. "You're safe now. I won't let anythin’ happen to you."

He waited until Mac had calmed and was attempting to crawl back into Jack's lap before speaking. "I gotta check your leg, you want me to cut your jeans?"

Mac hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "I trust you."

Swallowing hard, Jack carefully undid the button and fly of his partner's jeans and slipped them off, all while making a mental note to have a talk with all these damn feels coming out of the woodwork.

The wound on Mac's thigh was deeper than his arm but had been properly cleaned and dressed. Jack absent-mindedly thought he recognized the work as a black market surgeon he knew out in Seattle as he carefully rebandaged it and slipped Mac into the sweatpants. 

"And now we don't gotta make a detour to medical,” Jack murmured, trying to keep his tone light and jovial while struggling with his real emotions. It became that much harder when Mac reached out, hands lost in the long sleeves of Jack's shirt. Telling himself that Mac was just trying to feel safe, that all this cuddling was his way of dealing with the trauma, Jack sat back down and let the man he secretly loved curl up in his lap.

Mac let his eyes finally flutter shut. Jack was here, finally here, and he knew he was safe. With a soft sigh Mac let himself drift off in the arms of the man he loved. 

All too soon Mac was woken by Jack lifting him up and was greeted by the soft warmth of the California night air. He made a soft questioning noise but made no move to remove himself from his partner's arms.

"Almost home," Jack murmured against Mac's temple.

The genius snorted, he was already home. Home was Jack. Mac settled and was soon asleep again.

The third time the blond woke was to Bozer's relieved "Oh thank God."

Figuring he should probably reassure his adopted brother, Mac forced his eyes open and tapped Jack's arm to be put down. He pitched forward, overestimating the healing power of naps, but was caught by Bozer.

"Have I ever told you how much I hate hearing 'Mac got kidnapped'?” Bozer grumbled, squeezing his friend a little too tight.

"Love you too," Mac mumbled happily.

Bozer pulled away and shook his head fondly at Mac and then gave Jack a pointed glare as the Texan tried to subtly sneak back out the front door. "Take him to bed and make sure he stays there."

Jack opened his mouth to politely not do that, as he was sure it would lead to some heartfelt but ultimately friendship ending confessions, but stopped. 

Mac was staring at him pleadingly, with more emotion in his light blue eyes then Jack had ever seen before. 

"Come on," the Texan murmured, tugging fiercely at the bindings around his heart and carefully leading Mac to bed.

-

Wrapped in his favorite blanket in the lap of his favorite person with a bowl of his favorite comfort food, Mac finally accepted that this wasn’t a dream. That he really was safe and home and would never wake up to the ever present fear of the last month of his life.

Offering Jack a bite of his mac and cheese with crab and prime rib, Mac asked the question that had kept him going through the mission from hell. The question whose answer he imagined over and over again with each new rendition more ridiculous than the last. The question that had given him small moments of happiness in the dark time he had lived through.

“What sickness were you going to tell Matty you had?” Mac murmured as Jack slipped the proffered spoon into his mouth, dragging his lips across it as he pulled away.

Tilting his head slightly, the Texan made a questioning noise as he chewed.

“To play hooky with me, Bozer called me in sick with mononucleosis that morning. What were you going to fake?” Mac clarified, talking through his own mouth full of food.

Jack hummed his understanding and smiled as he swallowed. “Spring fever.”

His grin grew wider as Mac snorted in laughter and accepted a sip of mint tea from the mug Jack held up to his lips.

“There’s no way Matty would fall for that,” Mac giggled as he swallowed the tea that cleared his mouth.

“She sure didn’t the first time,” Jack said with a grin and the telltale twinkle in his eyes that always foretold a long and impossible story from the Texan’s stormy youth. “See, growin’ up I was a bit of a germaphobe and whenever I herd about one of my classmates stayin’ home because of spring fever, I thought it was a real sickness and was very grateful for them bein’ responsible and not spreadin’ it around.”

“No one ever explained?” Mac asked incredulously, offering Jack the last bite of mac and cheese and eating it as his friend gave a shake of his head.

“Negatory,” Jack said with a roll of his eyes, “in fact, the guys in the Delta’s found out and started usin’ it to their advantage! Kept tellin’ me they had spring fever so I would give them time off.”

Setting his bowl aside, Mac accepted the cup of tea they had been sharing, letting the smooth ceramic warm his fingers as he eagerly grinned up at Jack to continue his story.

“Finally found out when I got sick one lovely spring mornin’ and had to call Matty to tell her I wasn't gonna make it in. I told her I had spring fever, and she yelled at me to get off my ass off the couch and get into the office!” Jack continued, adopting an appropriately indignantly tone and expression. “I told her if she thinks I’m gunna get out of bed with a 101 fever, she is sicker than I am and hung up. And not an hour later I had one of the CIA med geeks bangin’ on my front door!”

“She didn’t!” Mac whispered with a huge smile.

“She did!” Jack insisted, “the guy took one look at me, called me an idiot and explained what spring fever really was. And I may have gotten shit for a month of Sundays, but Matty Webber never again called bullshit on any sickness I ever claimed to have!” The Texan finished with a proud and dramatic conclusion.

Mac’s smile grew impossibly fond as his head tilted to one side. “I love you.”

It was instinctual at this point, for Jack to shove down the pain of his lovesick heart yearning for the soft words the blond boy told him to mean more than they ever could, more than they ever should. But something stopped him today. 

It could have been the separation, the fear, the pain of another death defying day in the life of a spy. It could have the naked emotions that Jack had never seen, or allowed himself to see, in the soft blue eyes of his partner. 

Whatever it was stopped the self deprecating snort from leaving Jack, stopped the ‘love you to pal’ that forever sounded more and more bitter to the Texan’s ears from slipping past his lips. Stopped the weight of the sins he had committed, in the darkness of the days before he had met Angus MacGyver, from crushing the spark of hope that ignited in his chest.

“You shouldn’t,” Jack murmured, aching seriousness causing the words to catch in his throat.

“I know,” Mac murmured, smile never wavering, never fading. The opposite in fact, as happiness and love seemed to start pouring out of the blond, making him more radiant, more beautiful, more painful to look at than the sun. “And I don't care.”

With a final whimper, Jack’s self control shattered under the undeniable, inescapable light of Mac’s love for him. The old soldier surged forward, only just keeping himself from smashing their lips together and taking what he had been denying himself for so many years. Barely touching, Jack let out a shaky breath against his partner’s plush lips.

But Mac was done waiting and closed the gap and finally, finally, kissed Jack. His eyes fluttered shut and he smiled into the kiss as Jack let out a soft moan. Mac parted his lips as he felt the soft warmth of the Texan’s tongue slide against them and let out a moan of his own as he was eased back against the pillows of his bed, the blanket wrapped around him parting under gun calloused hands.

Jack gasped as he pulled back slightly from the intensity of that first kiss, a kiss that wiped all previous kisses out of Jack's mind and heart. Distracting himself from the overwhelming feeling of that first kiss, Jack pressed more against Mac’s cheeks, along his jaw and down the blond’s throat, nuzzling into the soft skin as it vibrated with Mac’s soft laughs.

“God I love you,” Jack gasped, burying his face entirely in the crook of Mac’s neck at the intensity of the confession, the weight of the words leaving the confines of his heart and settled into his soul. 

Mac kissed Jack’s temple and pulled him closer still until every inch of their bodies was pressed together.

“I love you so damn much, Mac” Jack gasped, his voice painfully close to a sob as his walls crumbled, bindings broke and the love he felt for his partner came rushing forth.

“It’s ok, it's ok, Jack,” Mac murmured, letting go of the blankets he had been pulling over top of them to rub soothingly at the Texan’s back.

“It ain’t ok,” Jack blurted out, tears coming faster now as he choked on his words, desperate to make the blond understand. “It’ll never be ok!”

“You're right,” Mac murmured, his fingers stilling.

Jack jerked back, fear clutching so tightly at his throat he couldn’t speak a word. For all that he wanted Mac to wake up and realize how much more he deserved, so much more than a broken old war dog, he couldn't bear the idea. Was terrified of the possibility that the blond might finally leave him.

“It’s perfect,” Mac murmured, quickly moving his hand to cup Jack’s cheek and keep him from pulling any farther away. “Nothing we ever do is simply ‘ok’. So it’s going to be perfect. And you know that I’m always right, so don't argue with me.”

Laughing weakly at the fierce determination in the eyes of the man he loved, Jack blinked away his tears. “I know better than to argue with you, darlin’”

“You love me, and I'll love you,” Mac said as if they were dividing up which goons of the week they each were going to fight. “Deal?”

Dropping down and rolling onto his side, Jack pulled Mac back into his arms and wrapped them in every blanket he could reach. “Deal,” he whispered against Mac’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> -finishes a 80% written WIP and pretends I've been writing the entire time-


End file.
